


The Break of Day

by nicedress



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Caregiver Fatigue, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicedress/pseuds/nicedress
Summary: He tracks every change of breath, every movement, cold seeping into his skin when Klaus takes a little too long to inhale. Even when he’s too tired to keep his eyes open, Five fights to keep himself awake, filled with the grim certainty that Klaus will die if he lets himself sleep.Sequel toThe Longest Night.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131974
Comments: 35
Kudos: 135
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	The Break of Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the ‘Cradling Someone in their Arms’ prompt for my [Bad Things Happen Bingo card](https://nicedress.tumblr.com/post/641671454992252928/my-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo).
> 
> As mentioned in the summary, this is a sequel to [The Longest Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29058651), which should definitely be read first, otherwise this won’t make much sense. I’m honestly really surprised by how well-received that one was, so I hope this is a satisfying conclusion! 
> 
> Thanks to [Goldie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldieknocks) for your feedback! And to Kenzie for reading over this for me 🥰

Five doesn’t sleep much anymore. 

Even before he’d found Klaus, sleep had been impossible to come by. When he closed his eyes, he would see his siblings’ faces, pale and dead, ashes clinging to their skin. Sometimes, he would see Klaus lying in a casket, still and solemn in a way he was never meant to be. 

A part of Five knew that he would run away after they’d buried Klaus. It was as though the world had come to a stop, harsh reality hitting him like a brick wall—they weren’t invincible. When things got out of hand, no one was going to help them. 

Dad was always going to watch from afar with his telescope, unreachable and detached, as his children fell like toy soldiers. 

Five had spent the following months angry—so _angry_. Leaving was the only option; he didn’t know what he expected to find, but seeing the rest of his siblings dead had been the tipping point. 

Once he realized he couldn’t go back, Five would lie awake and stare at the sky, trying to block out the skeletons of old buildings and plumes of smoke at the corners of his vision, and wonder how difficult it would be to kill himself. 

They weren't destined to live out their lives, die peacefully of old age like normal people. They’d been doomed from the day they were born, from the day they’d been purchased as lab rats. 

It’s for that reason, he thinks, that he chose to hang on for just one more day. Then another. Then another. 

He still doesn't know how much longer he wants to live, but he can make it one more day. 

For Klaus. 

Now he lies awake at night for a different reason, his senses narrowed in on the body mere feet away from him. He tracks every change of breath, every movement, cold seeping into his skin when Klaus takes a little too long to inhale. Even when he’s too tired to keep his eyes open, Five fights to keep himself awake, filled with the grim certainty that Klaus will die if he lets himself sleep. 

He’s died four times since Five dug him out of the filthy casket, the interior blackened, yellow with rot and crusted fluids. The first death had been quick and sudden, right when Five teleported him out of the earth. He’s died twice in his sleep since then, and once by his own hand: claw-like fingers clenching his throat until it was too late for Five to save him. Five wants to believe the last one was an accident, that Klaus isn’t lucid enough to kill himself, but he doesn’t know. 

He doesn’t know anything anymore. 

Sometimes Klaus will stay dead for no more than an hour, but the current record is three days. And Five hopes, _hopes_ Klaus spent more time underground dead than alive, because he can’t fathom the alternative. 

Klaus should be thirty years old now, but he doesn’t look any older than he did the day they buried him almost eighteen years ago. Five can still see the brother he remembers under the thin, paper-white skin, behind the haunted eyes and patchy hair. He looks so wrong without a smile on his face, even a fake one, too malnourished and empty to be alive. 

But he is alive—held together by a power that even Dad hadn’t known about. 

Five won’t let himself imagine that Dad might have known and buried Klaus anyway, just as an experiment. The thought of Dad doing this to Klaus on purpose is enough to burn him up from the inside, to rip apart the last illusion of safety and comfort he’d ever had about their childhood. 

It’s been a week since Five brought Klaus to his makeshift home in the remains of the library. A week of listening to Klaus cry in his sleep, waking up screaming for Dad with a voice that’s strained and broken, curling away from horrors that Five can’t see. 

Every touch seems to hurt him, or maybe just terrify him. Little more than a hand on his shoulder makes him flinch away, screaming and writhing—pale, bony limbs twisting like spiders’ legs beneath the decaying uniform that still clings to him. 

Five doesn’t push him. 

He stays nearby, murmurs gentle reassurances, and he waits. Waits for Klaus’s mind to catch up with his body, to realize he’s safe now, out of the ground. 

He waits, because there’s nothing else he can do. 

——

It’s nearing the end of the second week when Klaus finally allows Five to touch him enough to clean him up. With the blood and vomit and grime washed away, and his cold, skeletal body enveloped in an oversized sweater, Klaus looks a little more human. 

The sweater is thick and black, one of the few articles of clothing Five had found unscathed, plucked from the remains of a department store. Klaus had flinched away from it at first, pressing his hands over his eyes and pleading, “ _no, no, no—_.” 

For now, Klaus has gone quiet—or as quiet as he can be. He’s muttering to himself, voice stripped raw and barely understandable, tears collecting in the sunken canyon of his eye sockets, vacant gaze turned toward the sky. Five wishes there were stars for him to look at, but they’re hidden behind a haze of smoke and ash. 

“Hey,” Five says gently, and Klaus’s eyelids flutter. “Do you want to try to eat something?” 

If Klaus’s body can’t sustain itself, he won’t be able to stay alive. Five doesn’t know if Klaus can get back to where he was, but he can’t just sit here and watch him die again. 

Klaus’s eyebrows furrow and he claws his bandaged fingers over his chest. His fingers were another victim of the grim assortment of injuries that cover his body, the tips thickly crusted with blood that Five had tried his best to clean. He doesn’t know if Klaus still has nails underneath, but he suspects he doesn’t—not with the way the coffin was clawed up from the inside, deep gouges in the wood. 

“Mom?” It’s barely a whisper, but it wraps around Five’s heart like a fist. 

“No,” Five says tightly, the word thick and heavy in his throat, his eyes burning. “It’s just us.” 

He thinks of Luther, his extensive record collection, the words ‘ _I think we’re alone now_ ’ ringing in his ears. His skin crawls, anxiety weighing heavy in his chest. 

They’re alone. They’re the last two people in the world. 

If anything happened to Five, Klaus would be alone again, caught in a cycle of dying and waking—maybe forever. 

Klaus lifts his hand and lets it hover a few inches away from his chest, as if he’s unable to extend his arm any farther. As if he doesn’t realize nothing is stopping him. 

Five reaches out hesitantly, moves his hand into the box Klaus has imagined around himself. Klaus takes it, his hold clumsy and awkward, his skin like ice against Five’s. 

“Five?” His voice is nails on glass, thin and harsh. 

Five sucks in a slow breath through his nose, steeling himself. “I’m here.” 

Klaus’s fingers twitch against his own. “Just us?” 

“Yeah.” It wavers, breaks, and Five bites down on his bottom lip to keep it from trembling. “Just us.” 

Klaus’s fingers curl around Five’s a little more securely, pulling his hand to his chest. Five can feel Klaus’s heart, quick and irregular, too close to the surface. He almost thinks he could lift Klaus’s sweater and see his heart exposed, his chest broken open. 

“I have bottled water,” Five tells him, just for the sake of it. Talking to himself was a habit he’d started forming in the days after arriving in the apocalypse, before he’d found the bodies of his siblings. 

Before he started digging graves in the courtyard. 

Before Klaus. 

Now, Five thinks out loud for both of them. He doesn’t know how much Klaus comprehends, but he hopes his voice is some form of comfort. 

“Maybe we should start with that,” Five adds. “How does that sound?” 

Klaus doesn’t answer, but Five never expected him to. The water is on the other side of the library with the rest of their supplies, and as much as Five wants to blink over and get it, he can’t make himself let go of Klaus’s hand—not when Klaus reached for him first. 

Five sits with him as the sky darkens, as the last traces of sunlight behind the clouds fade to black, and Klaus doesn’t let go of his hand. He’s muttering to himself again, his breaths quick and shallow as if he might cry. Five lays down at his side, keeping a small space between them, their joined hands on Klaus’s chest. 

“I’m right here.” 

For some reason, it only seems to upset him more. Klaus’s breath hitches, comes out as an agonized whine, his fingers flinching around Five’s hand. 

“ _Where?_ ” It’s no more than a hiss, broken and wavering. 

Five squeezes his hand gently, presses his forehead against Klaus’s shoulder. “Right here.” 

Klaus’s chest slowly rises, lowering around a sigh that almost seems content. Five can’t tell if Klaus has turned his head, if his cheek is resting lightly against Five’s hair, but he doesn’t want to check. 

He just lets himself have this—this moment that almost seems normal. 

——

Klaus is dead in the morning. 

It shouldn’t hurt anymore, not when Five knows he’ll come back. 

It shouldn’t hurt, but pain sears in his chest as if a layer of his heart is ripping away, leaving it raw and bleeding. He bangs his fists against the crumbling walls of the library, pain vibrating up his arms, and his enraged, agonized scream echoes into the empty world. 

He counts the minutes, the hours, the days. Each moment that passes feels like a lifetime; a lifetime in which he has to pretend that he’s not living with a corpse, pretend that he doesn’t see it in Klaus’s bed. He can’t look at it, but he does anyway. 

He moves close every time he thinks he sees Klaus breathing, sits still at his side, and waits for him to open his eyes. But the movement is always in Five’s head, Klaus’s hand cold and lifeless in his own. 

The disappointment is crushing, the loneliness weighing a little heavier each time, and Five hates himself for being weak, selfish—for wanting Klaus to suffer so he wouldn’t have to be alone again. 

Each time, there’s something in Five’s chest that almost feels like relief, and he hates himself even more. 

——

Klaus always wakes up screaming. 

It happens in the middle of the afternoon, three days later: a sharp gasp followed by a scream that’s more breath than voice, high and screeching as Klaus writhes away from the light, hands pressed against his face. 

Five blinks to his side in an instant, relief and regret shaking inside of him, burning in his eyes. The reassurances that fall out of him are bitter on his tongue, a repetition of “ _it’s okay, you’re okay, you’re safe now,_ ”—an endless refrain of lies until Klaus goes quiet. 

“I’m here,” Five adds, because at least that much is true. “You’re not alone.” 

While Klaus was sleeping— _sleeping_ , because Five can’t make himself think the word _dead_ —he’d moved the water closer to the thick pile of blankets on the ground that served as Klaus’s bed. He can’t let him slip away again, even if that means all their supplies need to be kept nearby so Five doesn’t have to leave Klaus’s side. 

And it doesn’t seem like he can leave Klaus’s side—not anymore. Now that Klaus has warmed up to Five’s touch, has started reaching for him, he seems to break every time Five moves away from him. He’ll cry, soft and broken, muffled sobs hissing through his teeth as if it pains him, a sound that’s wrecked and devastating. 

When Five returns to his side, Klaus will clutch Five’s hand to his face and let out a broken string of pleas, of apologies, and all Five can do is pet his hair, hush him gently, ghost the back of his knuckles over Klaus’s cheek until his breathing slows. 

Five waits until Klaus is calm before he suggests water again, and Klaus is still unresponsive, uncomprehending. This time, Five isn’t letting it go. 

“Sit up with me, okay? You need to drink something.” He slides an arm under Klaus’s shoulders, easing him into a sitting position—he feels so light, so fragile, as if one quick movement could cause him to break apart in Five’s hands. 

He leans them back against the wall, shifting his arm around Klaus’s waist, and touches the rim of a water bottle to his lips. Klaus whines in protest, the water pooling in his mouth and pouring out like a fountain. 

“Please drink,” Five says, and he hates how small he sounds. 

Five tries again, gently tilting the bottle and letting the water touch Klaus’s lips. Klaus flinches away as if it hurts him, choking on a sob, and Five grits his teeth, his eyes burning in frustration. 

It’s not Klaus’s fault—it’s _not_ —and Five tries his best to redirect his anger. It’s Dad’s fault, but he’s not here to take responsibility. 

The only person Five can be mad at is himself. He failed Klaus, too. 

Five angles Klaus’s head back and it seems to go limp all at once, dropping back heavily onto Five’s shoulder, lips parted. Five’s heart stops, goes numb with cold. Klaus can’t die, not again, not so soon—but then he breathes, a thin, rasp of a sigh, and Five clamps his lips between his teeth, pushes down the panic. 

He lifts the bottle to Klaus’s mouth again, lets a couple of drops trickle onto his tongue and roll down his throat. 

Klaus's body seizes, jerking forward with a sputtering cough, retching dryly. There’s nothing left in him to purge but his body tries anyway, shuddering in Five’s arms. 

“Please, Dad,” Klaus manages, the words ripped violently from his throat. “Please, I’m sorry, please—” 

Five pulls Klaus against his chest, fists clinging to the material of his sweater, and he hides his face against Klaus’s shoulder. He squeezes his eyes closed and tries to control the way his breath hitches and jumps in his lungs, holding it back with a clenched jaw. 

There’s a part of him that wants to cry for Dad, too. For Mom. For _someone_. He wants someone to take Klaus out of his arms, to fix him, because Five doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s never felt younger, more alone—he thought he was ready for this, ready for the world, but maybe Dad was right. 

Maybe Dad has always been right. 

The wind whips around them, and Five lets his tears leak into the fabric of Klaus’s sleeve. 

——

Before Five had found Klaus, he’d almost stopped using his power entirely. There was no reason to go anywhere fast, and walking from one place to another was a good way to kill time. More time spent walking meant less time sitting alone, less time for his mind to wander. 

Now, he can hardly travel fast enough—he blinks back and forth between the library and his usual scavenging grounds, panic clawing inside of him every time he leaves. He always waits until Klaus is asleep before going out, but every second they’re apart, all Five can think about is going back. His mind races, imagining Klaus waking up alone, taking his last breath and slipping away, fading out of Five’s life entirely. 

He imagines going home to find Klaus’s bed empty. Maybe it’s because he left, or maybe he was never there at all. 

Five jumps back to the library just to make sure, just to lay a hand on Klaus’s chest and feel the steady beat of his heart, the slow rise and fall of his breaths. 

Five reappears in the remains of the department store, an icy gust of wind making him shiver. Winter is coming fast and he doesn’t know how they’ll stay warm, how much food they’ll need, and he clenches his fists to keep them from shaking. 

There’s no one here to help him. He can’t afford to break. 

He finds a coat that might fit Klaus—soft pink with white fur edging the sleeves and the hood, thick enough to provide another crucial layer of warmth. It’s a women's coat, carefully tailored to suggest a slim waist and curved hips, with a small crystal detail on the zipper pull. 

He wraps it in his arms, tries not to think about how angry Dad would be to see Klaus in something like this, and takes it back to the library. 

Once upon a time, he thinks something like this would have made Klaus happy. Five doesn’t know if he can be happy anymore, if he can feel anything aside from the terror that haunts him, but maybe. 

Maybe. 

Klaus is awake when Five gets back. He’s curled onto his side, making himself as small as possible, fingers twisted in his hair and muffling soft, broken cries in the fold of his arms. Five blinks to his side, lays a hand on the back of his head, and smoothes his thumb over his hair. 

“I’m here now,” Five tells him, soft and urgent. “I’m here—I’m sorry—I’m right here.” 

Klaus shifts, wraps his fingers around Five’s wrist, and they stay like that until his breath evens out, quiet and slow like he’s asleep. 

“You okay?” Five asks. It’s a stupid question and he knows it, but there’s nothing else to say. 

Klaus nods—just slightly. “Dandy.” 

Five can’t tell if it’s a joke or an actual answer, but it’s so unexpected that he laughs anyway, laughs until his eyes burn and his throat feels tight, until he has to press the back of his hand against his mouth to keep from crying. 

When he meets Klaus’s eyes again, he thinks they might be a little bit brighter. There’s a light on inside of him—it’s dim, a single candle in an old, abandoned house. Still broken, the life and warmth sucked away from years of neglect, but there’s someone home. 

“I have something for you.” Five lifts the coat and Klaus squints as if it’s too bright, flinching back slightly. 

“It’s getting colder,” Five adds, as if Klaus can’t feel that for himself. Maybe he can’t. “I thought it would be a good idea to—” 

“Pretty,” Klaus sighs. He reaches trembling fingers toward the fur on the sleeve, but he jerks his hand back before he can touch it, something like shame clouding his eyes. 

Five wonders if Klaus can hear Dad’s voice, scolding him, demeaning him, and a flare of anger burns inside of him. It doesn’t matter what Dad thinks, because Dad isn’t fucking here. 

“You can touch it,” Five says tightly, straining to keep his voice level. “It’s for you.” 

He helps Klaus sit and carefully threads his arms through the sleeves. Klaus is more receptive to this than he was the sweater, pulling his arms in as if to hug the coat closer to himself. Five smooths his hands over the shoulders, adjusting it; it’s still too big for Klaus’s emaciated frame, but it fits well enough. 

Klaus shudders, and Five doesn’t think it has anything to do with the cold. He’s muttering to himself again, barely a whisper, and it takes a moment for the word to register in Five’s mind: a bitter repetition of “ _unacceptable_.” 

“It looks good on you,” Five says, because he thinks Klaus needs to hear it. 

Klaus’s breath hitches, his eyes sliding shut, and he seems to sink back into his own world. Five lets him go, holds his hand as they sit together against the wall, and he hopes the visions behind Klaus’s eyes are good ones. He hopes Klaus can see himself in a world where he doesn’t have to shy away from the things he likes. 

Five stays beside him just in case, to bring him back to reality if his mind slips too deep into the dark. It’s the only thing Five can do for him now. 

——

Five’s supply runs have always been focused on necessities—food and water, blankets and clothing. He finds himself now looking for anything that glimmers in the rubble, pretty things he doesn’t need to survive. 

He doesn’t need them, but maybe Klaus does. 

The closest Klaus ever comes to smiling is when Five brings something back for him. First is a bracelet with chunky glass beads that refracts the sunlight in stripes of rainbows; then a porcelain trinket box with golden accents, sparkling with crystals; and finally, a snow globe filled with glitter and flecks of white, surrounding a miniature scene of a cabin in the forest. Few delicate things survived the apocalypse, so finding something intact always feels like an accomplishment, like the inherent value and rarity might help Klaus somehow. 

Maybe Five just needs a goal, something to work toward. It’s like putting together a puzzle. He doesn’t know how many pieces there are, but if he can find them all, maybe Klaus will be okay again. 

Klaus seems to like the snow globe the most. He lays with it in his hands, gently rotating it every time the glitter settles, staring at it for hours. Sometimes, Five isn’t sure if Klaus is seeing it at all, eyes open but lost in another world. Sometimes, though, Klaus really seems to _look_ at it, tracing his fingers along the details of the base, tilting his head, and watching the glass dome catch the light. 

More rarely, he’ll call Five’s name—soft and broken—and Five will sit beside him as Klaus shakes it up and tells him to look. 

“It’s pretty,” Five tells him for the third time since he brought it home. “It’s really pretty, Klaus.” 

“ _Look_ ,” Klaus insists, holding the snow globe closer, his hands trembling slightly under the weight. 

Five cups his hand over Klaus’s, steadying it. “I see it. It’s nice.” 

“Ben likes it, too,” Klaus tells him. It’s the most coherent thing Klaus has said to him, but it seems to shatter something inside Five, the shards of his heart sharp and heavy in his chest. 

Five draws in a breath, slow and shaky, his lungs too tight. “Ben isn’t here.” 

Klaus lets out a whine, soft and distressed, his eyes flicking to the side, and Five wonders if he’s looking at Ben. He puts a hand on Klaus’s cheek, guiding Klaus’s focus back to himself. “It’s just us. Remember?” 

“But why?” Klaus asks, and Five doesn’t have the heart to answer him. Not yet. 

——

Five starts and ends each day with Klaus propped against him, coaxing him to take sips of water. Most of it still ends up on the ground, and each time ends with Klaus sobbing in Five’s arms, begging him to stop—or maybe he’s begging Dad. Five isn’t sure anymore. 

He tries to tell himself that it must be helping, that even a little water is better than none at all, because Klaus is still alive a week later. 

By the end of the second week, Klaus seems to have figured out the routine. He struggles to push himself into a sitting position when the sun sets and first thing in the morning, angles himself to sit against Five. 

By the end of the third week, he’s able to get Klaus to start eating—just a little, but at least it’s something. 

“You look better,” Five tells him after the fourth week. He’s been thinking it for days now, but he’s been too afraid to say it—too afraid that this is a trick of the light, that Klaus is still the bloody husk of a corpse he'd pulled out of the ground. 

But he does look better, there’s no denying that now. His color is better, if only slightly—at least his skin _has_ color again, soft pink over the pale skin of his face, the gray pallor pushed back into deep circles under his eyes. His hair is a little softer, a little shinier. It’s no longer hanging dull and limp in his face, the patches that had been yanked out of his scalp slowly beginning to fill back in. 

He’s still deathly underweight, but his body seems to be sucking in water like a dry sponge. His skin is just a little bit softer, no longer tight and dry against his bones. 

For the first time, Five can look at him and wonder if he’s actually recovering. 

Maybe he really can come back to life, fully and completely. Maybe as his body wakes up, he’ll begin to age and grow again. Maybe it will clear his mind, too. 

Five backtracks on that last thought—he needs to manage his expectations. Klaus has been through something no one else could ever understand, something humans were never meant to endure. He’s never going to be the same. 

“How do you feel?” he adds when Klaus doesn’t respond. Klaus still doesn’t talk much, and every day it’s a little harder to handle. Five craves conversation in a way he never has before, in a way he’s never thought possible. It doesn’t have to make sense—he just wants Klaus to acknowledge him in some way, to prove he’s not alone. 

Klaus stays in his own world, flat on his back and staring sightlessly at the sky, and Five wonders what he sees. He wonders if Klaus is watching the slow-moving clouds, hanging low and heavy, darkening as the sun sets behind them and casting their surroundings in muted oranges and grays. Or maybe it’s only darkness, the pitch-black inches of space between Klaus and the lid of the coffin. 

Five smooths Klaus’s hair out of his face with trembling fingers, and Klaus doesn’t move aside from a slow blink of his eyes. It’s probably a good thing that Klaus can check out like this, to step outside of himself and avoid the darkness and isolation. He probably spent so much time underground just like this—alive but empty, his mind somewhere far away, protecting itself. 

But he’s not alone anymore. He doesn’t have to do this. 

“I wish you would talk to me,” Five whispers. 

Klaus doesn’t answer, and Five feels stupid for being hurt. He doesn’t know what to do; he never knows what to do anymore, and that almost makes this worse. 

Leaving Klaus alone, giving him space—it feels wrong. Five doesn’t want to scare him, overwhelm him, but what if Klaus’s mind is back in the coffin? If he sees himself alone in the dark, then Five wants to make sure he doesn’t feel that way. 

Five lays down next to him, close enough to touch but with enough space to keep from crowding him. He watches Klaus as Klaus watches the sky, talks to him about anything he can think of—fond memories and careful, neutral topics that don’t have anything to do with missions or Dad or death. 

Sometimes he thinks Klaus smiles a little, but maybe it’s his imagination. 

——

Five stumbles across nail polish the next time he goes out, purple with a hint of sparkles. It reminds him of a gemstone, the color rich and bright, and he tucks the bottle in his pocket for safekeeping. 

He doesn’t think about it again until he’s wrapping Klaus’s fingers in fresh bandages the following day. Klaus’s eyes are dark and sad, his focus somewhere far away, and it seems worth a try. 

Keeping Klaus’s hand in his lap, he smooths the polish over the top of one of the bandages where his nail should be. The brush shakes in his unpracticed hand, leaving an uneven wiggle of purple against the bandage, but it’s the best he can do. 

He doesn’t know when Klaus comes back to himself. Klaus lifts his right hand when Five finishes with it and lets out a brittle, breath of a laugh. 

“Allison.” 

Five glances up from his work on Klaus’s left hand, smoothing a thumb over his knuckles. “I don’t think I’m as good at this as she was. Sorry.” 

Klaus curls his hand into a loose fist, presses his lips against the bandages. “She’s gone.” It’s only half a question, and the tightness in Klaus’s voice means he probably already knows the answer. 

“Yeah,” Five says. “They’re all gone.” 

“Where?” 

Five bites at his bottom lip, rolls it between his teeth. He doesn’t want to ruin this, not when Klaus is actually responding to him in some semblance of a back-and-forth conversation. He doesn’t know what will make Klaus withdraw, but they’ve spent so much of their lives being lied to. 

“I don’t know,” Five says, because at least it’s somewhat true. He doesn’t know if there’s anything after this life, never cared enough to think about it until Klaus died. He’d started hoping something like heaven could be real, because then they could all be together again one day. 

He’s not so sure what he wants now. 

If there’s some kind of life after death, Klaus will never be able to join them. No matter what happens, no matter what he believes in, the seven of them will never be together again. 

The nail polish bottle slips out of Five’s fingers and he sucks in a breath that’s sharp and wet, pressing a hand over his mouth. 

“I don’t know,” Five repeats, something like panic bubbling inside of him. He suddenly feels lost at sea, sinking into the dark, with no facts or knowledge to cling to. The life he had is gone and he doesn’t know how to get it back. Even if he can go back and save Klaus, there’s still the apocalypse, and he doesn’t even know what causes it— 

“Ben is here.” 

“Stop it!” Five doesn’t mean for the words to come out harsh, but Klaus jerks away from him as if he’s been burned. “Just—stop. He’s gone, alright? They’re all gone.” 

Klaus wraps his arms around himself, clinging to his own shoulders. “I want to go home.” It’s quiet, barely a whisper, and strikes like a match in Five’s chest. 

“We can’t!” Five snaps. “Look around you! There’s nothing left!” 

“I’m sorry.” Klaus curls in on himself, shrinking away. “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m—” 

“Stop it!” Five’s hands grip Klaus’s arms before he can stop himself, shaking him like a rag doll. “Dad isn’t here either. They’re all dead—don’t you get it?” 

“Please.” Klaus’s voice is desperate and aching, squeezing around Five’s heart. Anger churns sickly inside him, clouding his vision. “I’ll be good, I’ll try harder. Please let me go home, _please_ —” 

Five can feel the wall around his expression crumbling, his lips trembling no matter how hard he presses them together. This isn’t Klaus. He’s supposed to be larger than life, filled with chaotic energy that’s almost unbearable, lighting his room on fire one day and putting on makeup the next. He’s supposed to be unapologetically himself, enjoying life purely out of spite. 

“Stop acting like this!” Five hates the way his voice breaks, the way his hands clench tighter against Klaus’s shoulders. He can’t stop himself from shaking Klaus again, rough and angry. “I need my brother back!” 

“I’m sorry.” It’s like Klaus is afraid of saying it too loudly, and for some reason, that’s what breaks Five. He shoves Klaus away and buries a scream in his hands. 

He can’t do this anymore. 

He’s just a kid—a kid who never had to learn how to take care of himself, who had all his basic needs attended to at all times. He can barely keep himself alive; he’s achingly, desperately lonely; and all he has is a shell that looks like his brother but only knows how to beg and apologize. 

Five doesn’t realize he’s crying until his next breath wrenches out of him in short, hysterical sobs. 

He wishes Klaus was dead. 

There was a time that he would have given anything to have Klaus back, but not like this. Not as a hazy reflection of what he’d lost. Every time he allows himself to hope, it just gets that much harder to have it ripped away from him again. When he has to face the reality that his Klaus is gone. 

Everything he ever loved is gone. 

Mom, Dad, and Pogo. Vanya and Ben; Luther, Diego, and Allison. Five wishes he’d never tried to time travel so he could be dead, too—so he could have joined them in their last-ditch effort to save the world. So they could all die together, as a family. 

Hands land on Five’s shoulders, light and hesitant. 

“Five?” 

The grip tightens—just a little—drawing Five closer until he lets himself sink into Klaus’s arms, half-sprawled across his lap. Five hides his face against Klaus’s chest, curling his fists in the back of his coat. 

“Do you…” Klaus falters, the words vibrating weakly under Five’s forehead. “Do you remember snow?” 

Another sob rips out of Five, thick and painful in his throat, and he clings to Klaus a little tighter. He can’t listen to nonsense anymore, but he can’t make Klaus stop. 

“It was cold,” Klaus says. “You had coffee.” 

Five sniffs, wipes his eyes on Klaus’s coat. “What are you talking about?” 

“Snow.” Five can tell it’s supposed to be an answer, but he can’t follow Klaus’s train of thought—if there is one at all. Klaus makes a frustrated sound, a strained whine, and he adjusts his hold on Five, cradling him against his chest. “During free time. Remember?” 

Five squeezes his eyes shut, holds Klaus closer. To Five, it feels like it was only last winter that they all went outside, spent their half-hour of freedom playing in the snow. 

All of the times Klaus tried to show him the snow globe—he wonders now if Klaus has been trying to tell him something all along, and for some reason the realization hurts, twisting in his chest. 

“Yes. I remember.” 

“I was happy,” Klaus says, his voice cracking perilously, and something in Five breaks right along with it. 

He remembers the way they laughed, the way Vanya screamed when he jumped behind her and shoved snow down the back of her coat, the way Ben threw eight snowballs at a time, having fun with his power for once. 

He remembers the way Luther and Diego turned on each other for some reason, rolling in the snow like a pair of angry cats, leaving Allison to hold her own against him, Klaus, and Ben. He remembers Klaus, laughing so hard tears streamed down his face, and he wondered if this was the first smile Klaus didn’t have to fake. 

He remembers thinking that this wasn’t the life he would have chosen for himself, but if he could just capture this moment, keep it with him forever—maybe everything else wouldn’t seem so bad. 

“I was happy, too,” he whispers, confessing it against Klaus’s chest. 

The memory is painful now, tinged with regret. He’d always been so cold to his siblings, so intent on being the best; they probably never knew he liked them at all. 

He liked them. He liked them all so much. 

Even now, with them dead in the ground, he likes them— _loves them_ —desperately. But they’ll never know. 

He can’t fix that—he can’t go back and change it. Not now, at least, but he holds onto the fantasy of finding a way back, mastering time travel to take himself exactly where he wants to go. 

Right now, all he has is the apocalypse. 

All he has is Klaus. 

“I love you,” Five tells him, and the words feel awkward and misshapen in his mouth, catching on the back of his tongue. He clears his throat, clings to Klaus a little tighter. “I love you so much.” 

Once he gets the words out, it’s like the dam around his emotions has sprung a leak, the feelings drizzling out too fast. The words slip out of him over and over, his face buried against Klaus’s chest, and he feels Klaus crying against him, shoulders jerking and shaking. 

“I’m so sorry,” Five tells him, and it’s not until his voice breaks that Five realizes he’d been crying, too. The words are tight and painful, squeezed out in a thin, wavering whisper. 

He’s sorry. For being angry. For the mission. For all the times he’d been so close to Klaus without knowing he was alive. For never telling him how much he cared. 

He feels Klaus’s arms tighten around him, his head a comforting weight against Five’s hair. “This is real.” 

The words are soft, barely there, a warm breath against Five’s skin. He doesn’t know who Klaus is trying to reassure, but maybe they both needed to hear it. 

This is real. Klaus was buried eighteen years ago, Five ran away and jumped headlong into the apocalypse, but they’re both still here. 

For better or worse, they’re still here. 

Five closes his eyes and lets himself be held by the brother who used to flinch away from his touch, the cold husk that clung to life by a thread. He’s warmer now, comfortable and familiar, no longer a second away from death. 

For the first time in weeks, Five feels like it’s okay to let himself sleep. He doesn’t know what to do, what will happen tomorrow, but maybe that’s okay. 

Klaus will be here when he wakes up. 


End file.
